


Two Can Keep a Secret

by OpalEmpress



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Minor Character Death, Pre-storyline, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:21:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26562814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpalEmpress/pseuds/OpalEmpress
Summary: Melryi, a young slave in the Hutt mines, discovers something very interesting about herself.
Kudos: 6





	Two Can Keep a Secret

The mines of Malachor Two are at least warmer than the last planet she was on, Melryi thinks to herself as her pickaxe strikes the wall around the softly pulsing yellow crystal deposits. And it wasn’t Hoth—optimism didn’t come easily to her, but she tried to keep her bar for expectations low.  


A foreman passing her pauses, and she tenses under his gaze. Traders must be coming soon, looking for slaves who could be used in ways other than mining. So far, she’d been spared the fate of plenty of women by the rise in popularity for Twi’lek and Mirialan dancers—human just wasn’t exotic enough for the Hutts anymore. Frankly, she’s grateful. There’s no room for self-pity while enslaved, much less pity for anyone else.  


A piece of crystal falls from the wall, and she grits her teeth, waiting for an electric shock when it hits the ground, but another hand catches it first. “You alright, Mel?”  


She takes the crystal from the man, smiling at him. “Thanks, Hern. I’m alright—just got some eyes on me again.”  


Hern looks over her shoulder, watching the foreman continuing his walk to another deposit further in the cave. “You got a plan in mind again?”  


“What did we spread around last time? Bothan Nether Rot? Or was that the time before?” She keeps her voice quiet, but she can’t keep some amusement out of it. There’s almost a game in dodging the traders—she’s been doing it since she was ten, or twelve. It’s hard to tell.  


“I think last time was the rumor of you hearing voices and spitting up black goo,” Hern smiles, striking at the wall to dislodge another chunk of crystal, “Want me to bust up your nose this time? I’ve heard that sometimes works.”  


Melryi rolls her eyes, tossing a large crystal into the collector behind them, “Only if I want to ruin my looks forever. You never know when they might get us extra portions again.”  


“What, and mine are totally useless?”  


Melryi hides a laugh with a cough as the foreman passes by them again. This is her routine: striking walls and stolen conversation with her few comrades (it’s dangerous to call them anything as intimate as friends) during the day, quiet meals and a few hours of sleep at night. She lives for the days when she exceeds quota and can claim a bed roll close to the fire, or occasionally outside the mines themselves, where she can see the stars. She used to dream of escaping to them, but the collar on her neck and the reality of life always brought her back down. She locked those dreams inside herself long ago.  


And yet, they sneak back when Hern tells her stories. She was born in chains, like her parents, and their parents, as far back as anyone can be bothered to remember, but Hern was a child in the Empire until his mother had the bad luck to end up on the wrong side in a Sith dispute. Her entire house had been sold into slavery as punishment, Hern included. But he had seen a normal childhood, one that seemed like absolute luxury to her. He told her about Imperial parades, Life Day celebrations, ambassadors from newly discovered planets. The part of her that wished for the stars resented him, but the rest of her appreciated his attempts to share a life she would never know with her.  


The next day, the traders came. From their clothes, they were from the Smuggler’s Moon, or maybe Makeb. Melryi hid herself behind Hern as best she could as they descended into the mine, but the pit in her stomach grew.  


“Should we go back to that broken nose idea?” Hern whispered to her as they set up. His tone was no longer joking.  


The foreman from yesterday passes them again, this time with a datapad in hand. He leers at her, taps a few keys and then continues down the path. Her shoulders droop, but she doesn’t feel despair, just a rage centered in that pit in her stomach.  


A few hours pass and soon, she and Hern are the only two in a small caves off the main passage of the mine. On an ordinary day, they would have passed the time with jokes or conversation, but today, she’s in no mood, and his face betrays his own dread about the footsteps they eventually hear approaching them.  


The head foreman’s voice is crisp and cold, more so than the other overseers’. “This one is a little older—sixteen on her last medical inspection—but as you can see, quite attractive. Named Melryi, but you could certainly change it to something more exotic for the purposes of sale.”  


“How wasn’t she already sold off?”  


“We’re not sure—likely subterfuge on her part. Might be something to watch out for.”  


Melryi feels her jaw tighten as she turns to face them. The overseer is speaking to a Rattataki man, whose dead white eyes bore into hers. She raises her chin and meets his gaze, but knows better than to actually speak defiantly to a trader. Hern keeps his back to them, and she can’t blame him, can’t even resent him for not protecting her.  


The two men continue to speak as though she isn’t there. “Some of the buyers like slaves with a little fire. I’ve got a couple who’ve requested some education as well. She have any?”  


“She can read and write, and her numbers are good enough.”  


The trader shrugs, “Alright. Blondes are getting popular again, I’ll take her.”  


Her heart is racing, has been the entire time, and as the Ratatakki approaches her, she stumbles back. She had imagined she would meet her fate with more dignity, but now in the moment, she wants to run, wants to push past them, wants to scream for a savior. But there is no one else, no one except her and the two men bearing down on her.  


Her voice breaks when she speaks, and she hates herself for the words, “Please, please. Not me.”  


The overseer clicks his tongue at her like a disapproving parent. “She’s not usually this pathetic.” Melryi falls to her knees as the shock hits her, travelling down her spine.  


“I have that effect on slaves,” the trader replies, yanking her to her feet. His hands gripping her arm should terrify her more, but instead, from somewhere inside herself comes words that are not those of a slave  


How dare he.  


And her fear becomes rage, which then smooths, chills, pulses through her mind from the depths of her soul. Her breath steadies, her heartbeat slows, and she meets his dead eyes.  


“You do not want me.”  


The world has stopped and she focuses her entire being on those words, on the indignation, on the feeling that she knows, somehow just knows, that she is destined for more than this. That these men in front of her are small and weak and pathetic, that they should never even be within the air around her, if even they should be breathing air at all. She channels every second she has felt anger into her stare, into her breath, into the tilt of her chin and set of her jaw.  


And the man releases her arm.  


“I do not want you.”  


“Yes,” intones the overseer, “We do not want you.”  


Her eyes flick between the two men. Their faces have slackened, ever so slightly, and she realizes she can feel them looking not at her, but past her, past reality. She can feel their minds, pliable and feeble before her own, and she knows what she is then.  


“You may leave.”  


“We will leave.” They turn and meander out of the cave, back down the path. It’s only then that Melryi registers Hern next to her, his eyes wide and mouth agape.  


“Mel—you—do you know what—”  


She nods, fists clenching at her sides.  


Hern scrambles to his feet, “Mel, you won’t survive if they catch you. You know that, right? The Sith are vicious, they would eat you alive.”  


She knows that—this little display has left her wanting to sleep for a week. She’s more exhausted now than if she had worked through the night for days. But that old desire, the feeling that appeared when she saw the stars, had taken hold. Because now, she has something no one in her family has had in hundreds of years—a way out.  


She’s not strong enough, though—he’s right about that. Not yet, anyway.  


Melryi meets his gaze, “We both know that there’s an edict from the Emperor himself about Force-sensitives, Hern. And the reward for revealing someone hiding is huge.”  


Hern nods, his eyes huge. “So, we keep this a secret, okay? We’ll be good, not freak anyone out, and we’ll make sure no one finds out. I’m sure you can hide it. Okay?”  


He’s trying to protect her, she realizes. He thinks she is scared to leave, or thinks she is afraid he will tell someone. She can feel his fear, she realizes, though she has none of her own. It’s emanating from him in waves, fear for her, fear of her, fear that her trick will fade and the overseer will return and kill them both.  


How long before that fear overtakes his good intentions, she thinks. How long before the hunger she can feel in him, for simple food, for restoring honor to his family, for freedom, overtakes their comradery and he turns her over to the overseers? How long before he uses this against her in a gambit for rations, for kindness, for something more carnal? She does not want to believe he would, but they are both slaves. And there can be no friends among them, no secrets between them.  


Melryi smiles at him and agrees.  


And when Hern turns his back, she swings her pickaxe and buries it deep within his skull.  


She may not be as coordinated as him, but her years in the mine have ensured she has the strength to end it quickly for him. She feels his life ebb away through the Force, and she holds his hand while it does, but she can’t bear to look him in the eye, even when he’s gone, even as she hides his body under a pile of rubble. When the overseer asks her a few days later where “her large hanger-on” is, she shrugs and says she has no idea. She knows they won’t care, won’t bother to look for him. The only time she lets herself miss his presence beside her is when she’s eating alone, when she misses his stories that made their basic loaves taste better. She doesn’t bother to make conversation with the others anymore.  


In the months that follow, she practices in secret, in the dead of night, pushing sparks from her slave collar into her fingers, moving pebbles towards herself. She nudges the minds of others to overlook her, to miss her during inspections.  


And then the traders come again one day. She is two years older now, and she works far from where she buried Hern, on the other side of the world. She hears his voice sometimes in between sleep and waking, but never lets it stick to her. She has surprised herself by never feeling guilty.  


“We’ve got a special request from Korriban this time.” A Deveronian speaks. Melryi pretends not to be listening as she takes a bite of a ration bar.  


“Ah, the Sith need some live targets?”  


“Nah, they’ve got disgraced troopers for that. Apparently, some crazy Lord had a vision about a slave who was Force-sensitive. We’re supposed to collect them all and bring ‘em to her.”  


“Well, we don’t have any.”  


“You sure?”  


The foreman puffs up his chest, indignant, and Melryi allows her smile to break as she rises to her feet, holding her hand out in front of her. She focuses her eyes on the canteen several meters in front of her, focuses her mind on her breath, and sees it wobble, nearly tip over, and then it’s in her hand, hitting her palm with such force she nearly drops it.  


The trader sees and laughs openly, “Nice job watching your slaves. I’ll take her.”  


The collar is gone from her neck before they put her in the transport shuttle, next to a scared looking red-head. It’s hot and smelly and uncomfortable, and Melryi can’t stop smiling, because two words are bouncing around her chest, rippling through her muscles, making her shiver to her very soul.  


I’m free.


End file.
